Paint My Spirit Gold
by MorningGloryBlue
Summary: To think an assassin would be the one to show her shades of gray: It's dizzying how her life has done a one eighty lately. Or, Aaron Cross saves her life, and now she has to find a way to redeem it.


So, yeah. End of summer fic! Yay!

School starts on Monday, and I'm feeling pretty devastated. Title snatched from Mumford and Sons' new song, _I Will Wait_. It's kind of epic. Also, I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the person who moved out of Marta's Lake house, so I decided his name was Andrew.

I own nothing, blaw, blaw, blaw.

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"I am sick of it!" Andrew says viciously. "Why can't you tell me the truth!"

"I have! I've told you everything, I have!"

Marta Shearing watches through welling tears as her boyfriend, best friend and maybe-almost husband all wrapped into one, slip like quicksilver from her hands. It's (among other things) her job -the long hours, the disclosure agreement. Their relationship has been crumbling for the past year.

"No. No, Marta, you haven't," is his tart reply, and the door closes with a swift bang. It feels like the end. And now all Marta has left is this dilapidated, ivy festooned house, this house that was meant to sew their relationship back together.

She has her job too, but Marta doesn't want to think about that right now.

"I have," she whispers to the peeling paint chips and the squeaky floor boards. But Andrew's still right.

She bends down to sit on the floor and lets her back slump against the hall. More tears prick at her eyes, and slowly Marta begins to collect the shattered pieces of her heart.

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There is something missing in Dr. Foite when he enters the lab, and Marta seems to feel it before she sees it. The gun goes bang, bang, bang! And she can still hear it echoing long after he fired the last shot.

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Who ever thought an assassin would be the one to make her see shades of gray? It's ironic, and it might have made her smile if she had read it in a book, or seen it in a movie.

Also; running around with said assassin, while being chased by nebulous authorities who want both of you dead?

Not fun. It's a bit dizzying to be honest, the way her life has done a one eighty.

"I was their for the science!" she tells him with vigor. She was! They all were.

But then she thinks of how she never knew the patient's names, or how they came to be apart of whatever this program was.

And wonders.

Andrew did she thinks, almost hysterical, and he was disguised by her steadfast refusal to see without a rose colored glass. Because this had been her best chance to find that cure, or at least something like it. Because she had been so eager to find greatness. She feels like wincing, thinking about it, greatness that is, because she'd taken that job as much for the science as for the glory. And oh, she's such a coward.

Patient number five, or James, or Aaron is forcing her to see that. And it hurts deep in her gut, right where her common sense should be.

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"Why did you agree to work for Outcome?" He asks the night before the Philippines.

It's dark out, and the star's glittering brilliance dulled due to the abundance of city lights. She'd been reading a Science Today magazine she had snagged from a gastation, trying not to think about tense car rides and the smell of gasoline.

She looks up from the magazine, but doesn't face him. In her minds eye, Marta sees him leaning against the door post, waiting. For what exactly she's not sure, but she knows he sees every breath and he will read into expression she makes. Marta doesn't want him to get the wrong impression.

"I'm not sure how to explain my reasoning to you," she decides on. Aaron shifts positions, but doesn't move. It's a subtle tactic, but Marta's minor was psychology, and this is in essence, a friendly interrogation.

"Try me," he says. But what me means is "Tell me." You owe me.

But how, how does Marta explain that sometimes, she thinks she loves science more then anything or anyone?

How does she explain the way genetics enrapture her senses and pull her in for hours, sometimes days on end, the way the human genome -despite recent advances- is still shrouded in a mystery she aches to solve?

How does she articulate the feelings she went through when her mother died of breast cancer, and her nine year old self made the most solemn of oaths to find a cure, so no one else would have to die?

It's not easy, that much she knows. Aaron's easy to trust with his eyes like a midsummer's sky, but Marta isn't ready to reveal that much of herself to him. Not ready to let him hear about how much she misses her older sister who became almost like a parent, after their mother's untimely death.

"I wanted to do something important," she says.

It's the truth, but Aaron sees through it anyways.

"Marta," he says lowly, and there's something like danger in his voice.

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Marta really doesn't want to virus him out of the regimen.

Well, she certainly wants to get him off the chems, to help him, but preferably in not such a dire situation. He will get violently sick, she knows. Will be near incapacitated and their roles of protector and protectorate will be reversed, and she cannot protect him in the same way he can protect her.

But options are slim, so she does it.

Her hands shake slightly, and she's not expecting him to grasp her hand, but he does, and it helps more then she can say.

The words, "Thank you," slip quietly through the stuffy air, and Marta doesn't think she's ever seen him so peaceful.

Later when fever courses through him like blistering oil, Marta doesn't think she's ever seen him so feeble. He wouldn't be thanking her now.

But to her surprise, he does.

"You've done enough for me," is what he tells her. "You can make it." And then he burrows his head into her shoulder and let's her wrap her arms around him. He's nearly burning to the touch, his body sweat drenched and he quivers at the effort in takes to stay up right. But in her arms, he feels like redemption.

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In the end, it's Marta who saves the day.

She looks at Aaron when he tells her this, with eye brows raises and wide chocolate eyes, while he just smiles contentedly. As if he always knew she'd step up when the time came.

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Marta remembers Patient number five as politely leering, who thought she was attractive and had these intelligent blue eyes, that reminded her of the summer sky. As Aaron Cross, his eyes contain a more shrewd sort of intellect, but a rare honesty and he is not so much polite as he is calculating. However, she still is an attractive woman, and he is still an attractive man and some things never change.

After their debacle in the Philippines they dance around each other, not quite comfortable with the baggage each other carry along with them. But that doesn't last for too long.

In Fuji, she tells him about here mother's death and the devastation that followed. In a cozy mountain cabin somewhere in Russia, Aaron tells her about his little sister Amy, and his older brother Charles and how he used to compete with his brother as to who could scale the redwood tree growing in his back yard faster. He smells faintly like soap and leather when he kisses her for the first time, and from the way he uses his hands to pull her to him Marta almost thinks she may be like a tether to his lost ship.

Marta likes to wake early in the morning so she can watch the sunrise paint her spirit peach, coral and gold as the sun lifts itself to chase away the lingering darkness. Sometimes Aaron joins her while tracing light patterns on her back, adding the occasional kiss wherever he saw fit. The majority of those mornings would be spent in bed. But sometimes he would let her be, and she would curl up by herself, and watch the sun be reborn once again.

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One day in Argentina, Marta's car breaks down and ends up making the first friend she's made since she and Aaron went on the run.

Her name's Nicole, but she goes by Nicky.

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TBC?

* * *

AN: (I don't know if I want to write more yet. So don't be expecting anything super soon)


End file.
